Video shows the head of a shadowy mercenary group recruiting at a Russian prison, offering inmates freedom if they fight in Ukraine but death if they run

Yevgeny Prigozhin walking
Russian billionaire and businessman Yevgeny Prigozhin (R) and RSPP President Alexander Shokhin (L) seen during the Saint Petersburg International Economic Forum SPIEF2016 on June 17, 2016 in Saint Petersburg, Russia.Mikhail Svetlov/Getty Images
  • Wagner is a Russian private military company with close ties to the Kremlin that is now in Ukraine.

  • In a video shared on Telegram, the group's founder can be seen recruiting at a Russian prison.

  • Wagner's Yevgeny Prigozhin claims the men will receive pardons if they agree to fight in Ukraine.

Surrounded by prisoners dressed in black, a man identified as Yevgeny Prigozhin, the head of a shadowy mercenary group, makes this pitch: Come fight in Ukraine and be rewarded with your freedom — if you can make it back alive.

"Nobody goes back behind bars," Prigozhin, founder of the Russian private military company Wagner, can be seen telling men in a video from a Russian prison yard, per a translation from The Wall Street Journal's Yaroslav Trofimov. "If you serve six months, you are free. If you arrive in Ukraine and decide it's not for you, we execute you."

He gives the men 5 minutes to make a choice.

According to The Insider, an independent news outlet focused on Russia, the video was shared Wednesday on Telegram.

It appears to confirm prior reporting from The Daily Beast and The Wall Street Journal that Prigozhin, a close ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin, is recruiting inmates to to fight and kill Ukrainians with Wagner forces reportedly operating in the Donbas region.

Wagner mercenaries have already been linked to a massacre in Bucha, where hundreds of civilians were found executed, and a recent report accused them of war crimes in Africa, where they have deployed to fight insurgencies in Mali and the Central African Republic.

Prigozhin's offer to Russian prisoners — to fight in a conflict he bills as being far more difficult than the war Russia fought in Chechnya and Afghanistan — comes with other conditions beyond the threat of execution for deserters.

If they accept a deployment, prisoners must agree not to consume drugs or alcohol — and, according to The Guardian's Shaun Walker, are forbidden from looting and engaging in "sexual contact with local women, flora, fauna, or men."

In the video, Prigozhin says he's prepared to accept men between the ages of 22 and 50 but can accept younger recruits with the consent of their families. Those with addiction issues are welcome to join but will be subject to additional monitoring, including a potential lie-detector test to determine their "stability," he says.

Sex offenders can also join, he adds, subject to additional scrutiny. "[We] understand mistakes can be made," he says.

Have a news tip? Email this reporter: cdavis@insider.com

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